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The KU vs. Duke game was my version of Self-care
KANSAN.COM | THURSDAY, NOV.17, 2016
My eyes are bloodshot, I snap at people, I have stress dreams a few times a week. It's beginning to look a lot like finals.
"Love Trumps Hate"? More like "Trump Loves Hate!"
I was just trying to type "Thanks so much" and accidentally typed "Thanks smooch." I need sleep.
Tyler Self is the personification of mayonnaise.
I like to live on the dangerous side. I drink my Starbucks without the lid on it.
Dinner tonight: crackers and flat tonic water.
Let's take a second to appreciate that Tyler Self will start in a game at the end of the season
Azubuike? I call him "The Great Oz."
There are Fire Weather Warnings for parts of Kansas. It is November.
David Beaty is a DILF
Driving out of my small hometown to come to Lawrence is like boarding a spaceship to a different planet
What more do we have to do to make people realize climate change is a real thing?1!?1
My bad for not getting that paper completed, the whole sleeping and eating thing got in my way. I'll try to cut those bodily functions out of my life.
For farmers, every top is a crop top.
Time for me to ride those vape clouds all the way to class
3 tests, 2 presentations,1 term paper. Thanksgiving can't come soon enough.
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Doerr: Class-only political approach dangerous
> JACOB DOERR
@No_Doerr
CW: Racism, Xenophobia, Sexual Assault
I come from a manufacturing family. My grandfather came to Wichita without a college education to work in the Boeing plant. My father, fortunate enough to graduate college, began his career at the same plant. As my dad worked into management, we moved often throughout the rural Midwest and the Rust Belt, from Kearney, Neb. all the way east to Akron, Ohio. In all, five of the six counties that I have called home voted for Donald Trump - four of those with majorities of over 70 percent.
Although my father's work provided me a healthy degree of class privilege, I am no stranger to the economic and class arguments behind
Trump's rise. America has lost 42,400 factories between 2000 and the Great Recession, a third of all facilities that employed more than a thousand people. Driving to the swimming pool in Shenandoah, Iowa, meant passing by the ruins of the old seed companies. Likewise, driving to work through Cuyahoga County, Ohio, meant passing by massive train yards and the burnt-out husks of former factories. Most people in the Midwest have similar experiences and vivid memories of the recent recession.
But focusing on class and economic conditions only partially explains the reasons for Trump's rise in the United States. Naomi Klein, a writer for The Guardian, makes this mistake; she blames neoliberalism as the ultimate reason behind Trump's rise, not racism, which deserves as much and separate blame.
The belief that racism can be improved through economics alone - that it is explicitly a class issue - has haunted liberal thinkers in the past. Liberalism during the Civil Rights area posited that rising wages would
extinguish racial differences in wealth, but that gap never healed and has only increased. This mindset reared its head again during Bernie Sanders' campaign for the White House, during which economics was prioritized beyond an intersectional platform.
An argument to explain Trumpism through economic conditions and issues of class also obscures other reasons for his rise. Those who cast votes for Trump voted for a man who began his campaign decrying undocumented immigrants as "rapists and criminals." In the following months, Trump expressed a desire to halt the inflow of Muslim refugees from Syria and appealed to law and order by courting relationships with Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee and the author of stopand-frisk policies, former mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani. To ignore that Trump owes much of his popularity to supporters of law and order (and ardent opponents of the Black Lives Matter movement) amid the largest civil rights protests since the 1960s is to ignore one of the primary reasons for his rise.
But issues of class are important for other reasons too. Think specifically about all the talk heard both in the media and within wealthier white communities lambasting poor, uneducated whites for supporting Trump. On election day, a majority of educated and uneducated white people, and a majority of whites earning more than $50,000 voted for Donald Trump. So much for the supposed dignity of #NeverTrump and the idea that education can somehow meaningfully reduce support for a racist and xenophobic candidate. The figures of a "working-class bigot" or an "uneducated redneck" employed by middle-class and wealthier whites seem to support their own class interests without asking real questions about their complicity in electing Trump.
Certainly, economics and class are important in explaining Trump's rise, but they do not deserve the sole interest of political analysts and commentators. Racism and xenophobia were also instrumental in creating populist support for Trump during his
campaign, and that cannot be erased.
Democrats have failed those belonging to the working class of all intersections by not supporting a living wage and through supporting free trade ventures such as the TPP.
But understanding the reasons for Trump's rise beyond one lens is key for establishing an answer from the left. Focus on class at the expense of race and the left risks repeating the mistakes of the past and normalizing overt racist discourse and violence against marginalized identities. Focus on race at the expense of class and the left risks repeating its mistakes in supporting conservative economic policies over the past three decades, further crushing the disenfranchised of all intersections. Moving forward, and against Trump, requires understanding the reasons for his rise in all their complexities.
Jacob Doerr is a graduate student from Shenandoah, Iowa studying public administration.
Liston: Criticizing U.S. is not un-American
RYAN LISTON
@rliston235
Recently, kneeling
Sitting on a pedestal of privilege can often make it difficult to understand the hardships that less-fortunate people face. From this perch built on systemic advantages, people often hear the criticisms and concerns of oppressed groups, but do not see the issues as reality since the issues do not personally affect them.
during the national anthem has been used to highlight the issue of racial inequality. In response to these protests, some atop the pedestal of privilege have suggested that anyone who has a problem with this systemic imbalance should just leave the country, including Kansas Representative Joe Seiwert and Tomi Lahren, host of "Final Thoughts" on The Blaze.
Seiwert issued his remarks on Facebook, writing "go back to where you claim home," after Denasia Lawrence knelt while singing the national anthem at an NBA preseason game.
Lahren's comments came after San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick knelt before
an NFL game. Addressing Kaepernick, Lahren simply said, "Leave."
Both Seiwert and Lahren claim that their patriotism and pride led them to react in such ways. However, their statements are neither patriotic nor should they be examples of American pride. At the core of the United States Constitution is the idea that people throughout the country can criticize the government without persecution. In fact, such criticism is the foundation for reforming American policy when necessary.
Telling people to leave the country for criticizing it undermines American democracy and encourages strict obedience to the status quo. When
people try to disregard the issues which are ingrained in our society rather than address them, we fail to uphold the "American Dream," which suggests that the United States can be a country for all people.
Progress results from action. Without discussing issues, we cannot make progress toward alleviating them. Just as Martin Luther King Jr. marched and organized protests to spur on the civil rights movement, athletes and activists have begun to kneel to bring the issue of modern-day racial inequality into the spotlight. Those people have decided to kneel because they want to improve the United States. They are the true patriots, not Seiwert or
Whether you agree with those who choose to kneel or not, there is no justification for claiming that they (or anyone for that matter) do not have a place in the United States. Diversity of opinion ought to be encouraged, not diminished. And to those, like myself, who live privileged lives, we cannot allow ourselves to hear only the echoes of such criticisms from the top of the pedestal. Even though the issues may not affect us personally, we must empathize with those who face discrimination and advocate for the elimination of systemic oppression.
Lahren.
Ryan Liston is a sophomore from Lawrence studying journalism.